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Visapur Fort- Part I- The Wrong Turn by Sadik

“Ohh!! I forgot our Camera!” What a statement when you are almost at the destination of your well awaited weekend? Thanks to my Samsung Galaxy, it is just a wonderful thing to replace a powerful camera. One problem solved, but it was just a start of many hiccups on the way. So, enjoy the captures as we have enjoyed it!!

Visapur Fort is the twin fort of Lohagad Fort, where we trekked 2 weeks back. It situated at a walkably close distance from Lohagad Fort. It was built during 1713-1720 and was later taken over by the British. Afterward, Visapur Fort was used to conquer Lohagad Fort.

Visapur Fort is very accessible at Lokadwadi, the base village of Lohagad Fort. But since we have already traveled that route, we decided to try another suggested route via Bhaja Cave. This was our second mistake.

We took a National Highway from Pune toward Mumbai. At Malavali exit, we turned left, crossed Malavali railway station and drove straight.

At Bhaja Cave parking entrance, people told us that it was not a good time to go to Visapur Fort because the road had been destroyed by rain. We were skeptical but turned around anyway.

So that was the first wrong turn! We decided to drive back and took Lohaghad Route using Kamshet exit.

At Kamshet Ghat, a mountain pass in Kamshet, we had breakfast. Thank to Tes’ hard work early in the morning, we had Egg Burgee and hot coffee. It was hot, and the smell of spices really kicked off everything. We had this Indian scrambled egg with bread. Filled and ready to go!

After breakfast, we drove straight to Lohagad Fort base village. When we parked our car at the village, it has already raining persistently. At this point, we found out that we didn’t just forget the camera, but we also didn’t have umbrellas, raincoats or jacket (except for Yaseen), and first aid kit.Perfect! We looked at each other awkwardly, I thought to myself “Ha ha ha!”

A new road connecting Lohagad Fort and Visapur Fort to Bhaja Cave are in progress. It was very rocky and rough. We realized then that the people at Bhaja Cave might have been right about us shouldn’t taking that route.

At about 1 km from Lohagadwadi village, there was a junction; one way toward Bhaja Cave, another way toward Visapur fort.

We looked back and see Lohagad Fort covering in the mist while it was drizzling where we were standing. I should also mention that Yaseen wasn’t ready to corporate that day. He didn’t want to walk so he sat on my shoulders the entire trip. “Double trekker” – That was what we called him.

The trail toward Visapur Fort was not at all easy. It filled with wet mud, slippery stones and dirty puddles. But the greenery and views on the trail were so beautiful.

Looking at the tall cliff, we had no idea where this adventure would lead us to.

Unlike the trail to Lohagad Fort, which was very clear and straight forward, here in Visapur Fort, there was no sign, and we had no clue where to move forward.

An hour later, we found a small hut at the hill foot selling tea, water and snack. Next to it, there was the way leading to a dried up waterfall which Tes doubted that it was a way up. Later, we found out that she was right. But even though it was the way up, there was noway we could make it with Yaseen on my shoulders.

We took a break when our small double trekker told us that his feet were hurt strangely though they didn’t touch the ground even once. We removed his shoes and checked. There was nothing so we continue.

More to go, and it felt like fort was moving away.

The cloud kept moving in and out. We really regretted not having umbrellas with us.

We met some locals on the way 🙂 Some of them didn’t care. But the one in the center gave us a strange look.

Here, we could see the view of Lohagad Fort standing tall covering with fog next to our destination Visapur fort, which we didn’t know how to get to. Now, we really felt like the trail was leading us away from the fort. We kept moving around the foot hill, and there was no way to go up.

Soon, the trail became torture. There was a newly made roadblock ahead off us. Clearly, there was a reason somebody kept it shut. There was a group of trekker ahead of us questioning whether to enter it. Tes and I decided to give it a go. And this is our second wrong turn.

Shortly after we crossed the forbidding line, the trail had turned into a complete torture. Honestly, there was noway to put your foot down. The whole road was covered in deep mud which ready to suck you in if you placed your foot in the wrong places. We had to scramble our ways around the side of the road which was horribly covering in pricky spine bushes. At one point of our frustrating agony, we saw a small track on the side of that violent trail. We thought it was a shortcut or something and decided to take it. And this was our third wrong turn!

Ok, so, have you ever seen the movies Wrong Turn I,II,II (I don’t know how many, I lost count of them)… where these travelers tried to explore the isolated, strange places and finally ended up dead? Well, This was not that extreme, but I did feel like we did something really risky. While the small new trail we took was beautiful, fresh, and peaceful, it also marooned from all civilization.

20 minutes later, we were butchered by the wildness. I got stung and scratch by the needle like spines of the bushes which covered the whole path. As a matter of fact, these pictures didn’t really do the real scenario a judge. My wrist was breeding heavily at first, Tes fell into the deep mud pool, and Yaseen, well, he was hungry! We had no first aid kit so we needed to improvise, using Tes’s scarf to tie up around my wrist. This was a time we knew that we couldn’t go on.

We made it out alive! But look at me… we’re so beat up! But you know what, we had a great experience. And in fact, this may sound stupid, it was the best trip so far this year. Wrong Turn turned out to be a right turn of our life. We laughed and enjoyed the whole trip back.

When our ordeals had come into an end, nature finally smiled at us. The rain poured down so heavily, and the water started to fall from the cliff. Few waterfalls, which weren’t there before, appeared in front of us. They were mesmerizing.

We were hungry enough to finish an elehant. Tes made a sweet and garlicky fired chicken, stir fired shrimp with kale, omelet and some rice. It was a hearty and delicious lunch, reasonably suited to our difficult trek.

Finally, this would not do until there were a few cobs of grilled corns.

What an amazing experience. Many times, you don’t reach your destination but the road teaches you to enjoy whatever comes. We came to conquer the great Visapur Fort, but unexpectedly, we found something else in our various wrong turns. We found adventures and that caring comforts from one another. In life, you don’t always have to get it right, somethime a wrong turn is all you need to get to where you actually want to go.

We couldn’t cross Visapur Fort off our list so we’re going back there again after Ramadan…hoping, next time, to find a right turn.

6 comments to Visapur Fort- Part I- The Wrong Turn by Sadik

Nice write up Sadik.. We did this trek few years back and had the same problem but fortunately for us, we found a local boy who was tempted by the 50 Rs that we offered. He took us along and showed us the right path or else we would have been in the same boat as you.. I have done some tough one’s but this is the trek that I have enjoyed the most.